roundup of big state primary calendar news

[Verily]

What about Georgia and North Carolina? I know New Jersey has a bill that's at similar progression to Texas's (bipartisan, passed in Assembly), but are they moving their primaries forward, too?

[Verily]

The shading is based on when the primary currently is. Green states are considering moving their primaries to Feb. 5th; blue states are not. Red states already have early primaries.

Here's a simplified map.

Red: Feb. 5 or earlier
Green: May move to Feb. 5 or earlier
Blue: After Feb. 5 with no consideration of moving

Michigan should really be purple, but I can't do that.

[Verily]

Only the DNC/Howard Dean has created (IMHO stupid) rules barring a few states from holding primaries before February 5.

What's stupid about those rules? Do you really want primary creep to cause primaries in November?

[Verily]

I think this makes Mitt Romney the frontrunner now. He could win in IA and NH, gain ground in the coming months in MI and take it on Jan. 15. Later on he could win NV, where he´s currently leading and which would also make up for a "bad" showing in SC.

If there´s a snowball effect for Romney, he´ll enter Supertuesday as the favorite and Rudy Giuliani will be chewing his fingernails ...

Wyoming is also early (for Republicans only); no polls yet, but Romney has a solid Mormon base (11%, which means about 20% of the GOP primary electorate) to work with there, too.